Problematics of a structured social codification: Re-reading Kannaki/Pattini in Cillapatikaram

Did she know,

Before the ladder of fire

Raised her to heaven

What would become

Of her sweet Tamil Country?

(Parthasarathy 58)

Epics prove to be an integral part in the depiction and reflection of life. The narratives, tradition and
custom that form the essentialities of an epic are drawn from reflective life. Narratives are
documentation of things that have existed long before it was written and hence can be taken as
validation of the life and culture that is our own and that is to be emulated or rejected. The oldest Tamil
literature dates back to 150 to 250 BC and is to be found in many anthologies which were then grouped
in two large collections, Ettothokai(The Eight Anthologies) and Pathupattu(The Ten Long Poems).
These together with ‘The Tale of an Anklet’ (5th C AD), The Descent of Rama (12th c AD) and the
medieval hymns of the Saivia and Vaishnava poets are outstanding produce of the Tamil mind. R.
Parthasarathy says that later Tamil literature in the last two thousand years have not been able to surpass
an achievement of this kind. (253)

Chronologically, Tamil literature began to take shape and find articulation around 600 BC,
which approximately marked the beginning of the Sangam Age. The age derived its name from the three
successive Buddhist Sangams or Poetic assemblies that are said to have flourished under the royal
patronage of the Pantiya kings in Madurai. This age is known as the Sangam Age and extends roughly
between 300 BC and 300 AD and produced almost the entire bulk of the literary work of the time
available to us now. The first sangam, which according to tradition had more than 4,000 member-poets
and the second sangam of more than 3,500 poets are now lost to us. The literature of the third sangam
that flourished for two thousand years in Madurai had around 500 poets.(Mangalam 3) Sangam
literature was primarily secular in nature dealing with everyday themes. Some extant poetry of the third
sangam is available to us. Cilappatikaram belongs to this third sangam. Others include Manimekalai,
Civaka Chinthamani, Valayapati and Kundalakesi. These were written towards the fading end of the
Sangam era and scholars are in doubt about their exact date and authorship.

Cilappatikaram is a Tamil epic of 5,730 lines written in ‘akaval’ metre and is supposed to be
composed around the fifth century CE. The book is credited to the Prince–ascetic IlangoAdigal who is
said to be the younger brother of the Chera King Cenkuttavan and is said to have renounced the princely
life due to an oracle that he, the younger brother, would ascend the throne (Canto 30, lines 171-73). The
epic was lost due to neglect until U. V. Swaminatha Iyer collected the crumbling palm leaf manuscripts
and published it in 1892CE. He added a lot of commentary and explanatory notes explaining the context.
The book was translated into English first by the French historian and Indologist Alain Danielou as
Shilappadikâram, The Ankle Bracelet in 1965 and later by the noted Indian poet R. Parthasarthy from
Columbia University Press in 1993. This book won Parthasarathy the A. K. Ramanujan book prize for
Translation in 1996. On his translation Parthasarathy wrote “I envied Ilango his great epic, and the only
way I could possess the poem, make it my own was to rewrite it in English. My assimilation of Ilango is
a form of translation – rewriting a poem in English that I could not myself write in Tamil…The Tale of
anklet is India’s finest epic in a language other than Sanskrit. It is to the Tamils what the Iliad is to the
Greeks: the story of their civilization.”(253)

Cilappatikaram narrates itself across the three major Tamil kingdoms-the Chola kingdom with
its capital in Pukar, the Pantiya kingdom with its capital in Maturai and the Chera kingdom with its
capital in Banci. Cilappatikaram is divided into three books and each book is divided further into cantos
– The Book of Pukar(10cantos), the Book of Maturai(13 cantos) and The Book of Banci(7 cantos) and
moves from ‘akam’or the erotic in the first book to the mythic in the second book to the ‘puram’ or
heroic in the third book. The narrative structure of the poem indicates the vision of an epic in its
presentation of the landscape, people, prosperity, poetry, music, dance, adherence to the tenets of
dharma and karma, heroism and notions of justice, patronage to arts and religion, ruler-subject
relationship, tradition etc in the three Tamil kingdoms. The conspicuous absence of the powerful Pallava
kingdom is evidence of the hostile relationship existing between the Pallavas and the Cholas and the
Pantiyas.

Cilappatikaram incorporates the essence that makes Dravidian epic literature distinctly different
from Aryan literature – “it does not imitate the Sanskrit epic…it builds upon forms indigenous to Tamil
which it perfects.”( Parthasarathy 8) Unlike the North Indian epics, the protagonists in the South Indian
epics belong to the merchant class. The protagonist is not presented as a semi-divine heroic warrior but
moves from the private to the public domain. For the first time a woman is presented as the hero of the
epic in complete contrast to the north Indian epics which is primarily patriarchal in nature. The
Tholkappiyam( a book of grammatical treatise) enunciates that the subject matter of poetry – is the
Akam(the inner, erotic) and the Puram(outer, heroic) which is located within an intertextuality of
landscape, flora, fauna, seasons, occupations of the community etc which is reflective of the society.
Chastity or Karpu was considered to be the greatest strength of a woman on the premise of which a
docile, domesticated woman like Kannaki enters the public domain to rectify the wrong done by a king.
She challenges the justice of a king, questions the governance of the ruler and exhibits the power of the
subjects which makes the ruler accountable. Interestingly, in all the three of the five great epic
poems(skt mahakavya) Cilappatikaram, Manimekhalai and Kundalakesi, women from non-royal
families challenge stereotypical perceptions of gender.

The title Cilappatikaram comes from two words – cilampu meaning anklet and patikaram
meaning ‘a tale or a story’, thus meaning ‘the tale of an anklet’. The epic narrates the story of a
merchant class couple Kannaki and Kovalan of Pukar, the capital city of Chola kingdom. They were a
happy couple till Kovalan meets Matavi, the sophisticated danseuse at the King’s court and embraces
her. Kovalan and Matavi have a child Manimekalai. On the day of the Indra festival, the lovers have a
quarrel and Kovalan leaves Matavi to return back to Kannaki. Book 2 begins at this point. Kovalan and
Kannaki decide to start a new life in Madurai, the capital of the Pantiya kingdom. Having lost his
wealth in the kingdom of Pukar, and with dreams and hopes for a new beginning, Kannaki gives
Kovalan one of her anklets to raise money to start a new life. Kovalan entrusts his wife to the care of the
shepherds and rushes to find a goldsmith. Meanwhile, the anklet of the Pantiya queen had been stolen
and efforts were on to find the thief. Coincidentally, Kovalan lands up in the same royal goldsmith’s
house who had stolen the anklet. The shrewd goldsmith implicates Kovalan, and Kovalan is captured
and hurriedly executed. On hearing the news, the silent, chaste, cloistered Kannaki so long within the
akam domain enters the royal court and challenges the justice of the Pantiya king. She proves her
innocence by breaking her anklet which is full of rubies while the queen’s anklet was full of pearls. The
shocked Pantiya king horrified at his injustice is killed by remorse and the queen follows him. Kannaki’s
wrath turns to the city, she curses the city and wrenching off her left breast hurls it and the anklet ‘the
pearls till embedded in it’ (l33-39) to the city setting fire to it. She then turns west to the land of the
Cheras where a divine chariot appears and carries Kannagi to heaven where she will meet her husband
after fourteen days. Book 3 begins at this point (canto24 l 15-20) with a belief among the hill dwellers
that a Goddess has entered the city and her presence will bestow good (25).The mountaineers report the
story of this strange sight to the Ceral king Cenkuttavan(canto 25 lines 61-68) and Cattan the ‘famed
Tamil poet’ relates the story of Kannaki(lines l72-l84).The King and Queen Ilanko Venmal recognize
the supreme sacred power of Kannaki as Pattini and decide to honour her by engraving a statue. From
this point the story has two parameters. On one side, is the story of Kannaki’s apotheosizing and on the
other side, is the Southern Kings’ intention to establish their supremacy over the Northern Kings and
avenge their humiliation in their hands. (canto 25, lines 175-76, canto 26 lines 166-170). It is here that
the twin themes of chastity and kingship intersect. The statue of Pattini is installed and the cult of Pattini
institutionalized. Kannaki’s deification as Pattini is legitimized by the king’s decree and this immensely
increases the authority of the King and hails him supreme among the Tamil rulers. The story however
does not end here. It ends with the renunciation of Manimekhalai, the daughter of Kovalan and Matavi
(canto 30, l8–36), and the stories of reincarnation of Kannaki(lines 119-l122) and the three other
women(her mother, Kovalan’s mother and Matari). Matalan enters the scene once again and sermons: It
is not uncommon that people who do good/Enter heaven , and that people who are attached /To things of
this earth are reborn. Good and bad /Actions have their own reward. Those who are born/ Die, and those
who die are reborn. Old truths, these.”(lines 132 -136).Kannaki’s deification is complete as one hears
Kannaki’s voice as a Goddess - ‘a voice rose (rises)from the heavens: “Your wish is granted”’ (161-63),
Cenkuttavan’s pre-eminence and position as a just and powerful Southern ruler is solidified and the very
essence and truth of life vindicated through the tenets preached by Matalan.

Cillapatikaram is thus the story of an ordinary woman’s apotheosis into a Goddess and
substantiate chastity as the principle element of womanhood. However, a deeper reading problematizes
the position of Kannaki. The women have always been relegated to a secondary position. Woman across
history can only be defied or deified. Kannaki is held as an epitome of chastity and virtue as she
supports the patriarchal concept of womanhood. There is a diametrical opposition in the position allotted
to Kovalan and Kannaki in the story. While Kovalan could easily transit between his loyalty to Kannaki,
his wife and Matavi, the courtesan and paramour, Kannaki’s role as the chaste wife, and Matavi’s role as
the other woman are fixed. No wonder that as a woman Matavi’s position is also problematized.
Kannaki is the pure , the chaste thus hailed by patriarchy ; Matavi as the dancing woman of the court
can only be praised for her expertise in her art in the court but is condemned for the same proficiency at
home by patriarchy. The same woman who is desirable in the public life is satirized and denounced in
the private life. Chastity is closely related to the formation of a binary category for women in accordance
with which a woman obeys and disobeys patriarchal value system. Therefore, a good Tamil woman like
Kannaki is 'chaste and divine' whereas Madhavi is 'corrupt and vicious' – a temptress.

Simone-de- Beauvoir in The Second Sex opines correctly “In marrying, woman gets some share
in the world as her own; legal guarantees protect her against capricious action by man; but she
becomes his vassal…She follows wherever his work calls him and determines their place of residence,
she breaks more or less decisively with her past, becoming attached to her husband’s universe, she gives
him her person, virginity and a rigorous fidelity being required.”(429) - this fidelity is required of the
female and not compulsory for the man. “The home becomes the center of the world and even its only
reality…while outer space seems to collapse” (450). This ideal space is the abode of pious woman like
Kannaki while the man Kovalan is bound by no such overtures. The public woman is the prostitute
“The only difference between women who sell themselves in prostitution and those who sell themselves
in marriage is in the price and length of time the contract runs”.(555-56) “The great difference between
them is that the legal wife, oppressed as a married woman is respected as a human being…and the
prostitute is denied the rights of a person, she sums up all the forms of feminine slavery at once.”(556)
“Man pompously thunders forth his code of virtue and honor, but in secret he invites her to disobey it
(612-13)…respectable gentleman condemn vice in general but view their own personal whims with
indulgence (613). Beauvoir puts into words what is true of women in all cultures and societies from time
immemorial. Kannaki and Matavi being two ends of a pendulum represent two different societies but
suffer the same pain, anguish and trauma. Kannaki’s husband Kovalan is her only identity as a married
woman and in losing him she loses her identity. In Kovalan, however, we find a stereotypical wealthy
male who freely engages in extra marital relationship, a normative affair in rich households “These
streets where the courtesans resided gave pleasure to the ruler of the earth” (12), “women adorned with
gold bracelets, made love to the king, their lives inseparable from his(13). Kovalan runs ‘through his
entire fortune’ (19) in his relationship with Matavi and returns back to Kannaki who accepts him
ungrudgingly. This acceptance is problematized again. Kannaki’s indoctrination in the patriarchal
hegemonic structure treasures Kannaki as the pure and loyal wife in her acceptance of Kovalan , at the
same time foregrounding her ‘position of identity’ on the same rules “ You have done things that good
men/would have stayed clear of/ As for me I have lived/A blameless life. Therefore I got up and
followed you.”(163) Kovalan , Kannaki and Matavi are representatives of contemporary value based
traditional city culture that gives more freedom to man and confines women within gender specific roles.
Foucault in ‘A Preface to Transgression’ in the book “Language, Counter-memory, Practice:
Selected Essays and Interviews” writes:“Transgression is an action which involves the limit, that
narrow zone of a line where it displays the flash of its passage, but perhaps also its entire space in the
line it crosses… transgression incessantly crosses and re-crosses a line which closes up behind it in a
wave of extremely short duration, and thus is made to return once more right to the horizon of the un-
crossable.”(33-34) This limit and transgression Foucault points out is correlated for if the limit was not
crossable it would not be a transgressive act and reciprocally for the transgressive act to take place, the
limit cannot be shadowy or unreal. Transgression is neither an act of violence nor of victory over these
limits. It is rather an affirmation of the existence of a limitless zone into which the individual can leap.
In “The Book of Maturai” Kovalan is falsely implicated in a theft case and hurriedly judged and
executed by the Pantiya king. A king is the divine authority, whose judgement is not to be challenged
and doubted. This setting is a kind of ‘limit’- a limit that remains real and not shadowy. In questioning
the authority of the King, Kannaki transgresses her subject-position in two fold ways – first, as a citizen
questioning the authority of the king and secondly as a woman who questions the male, here a king
thereby transgressing her identity as a citizen and as a woman. She breaks the societal code of conduct
and decorum in challenging the King. The King fails twice – as a judge who fails to give justice and as a
ruler who fails to protect its women. The metamorphosis of Kannaki to Pattini begins at this juncture. As
the legal wife of Kovalan, Kannaki’s anger is righteous and justified and firmly founded on her Karpu or
chastity. “Thus Kovalan died. His wife, now homeless, /collapsed in a heap of tears. But her
chastity/Became the King’s scourge. Wrenching off/one of her breasts, the pearls still embedded/in it,
she flung it at the towering city/of Maturai, and burned it to ashes. This is the Pattini praised by all.”(24)
Goddess worship has been an integral part of Hindu life and culture. Women are subjected,
neglected and suppressed or deified and worshipped as a Goddess. The basic human identity and
freedom given to man is denied to her. Kannaki by her chastity, her acceptance of her truant husband
and then correcting the wrong done to her husband assumes the stature of a Goddess as the Sati Savitri,
Patibrata wife, hence Parvati. In her apotheosis Kannaki transgresses her position in the social ladder as
well. She belonged to the Vaishya community but transgresses into a goddess of the highest order loved
and praised by all.
Kannaki’s last and egregious act of wrenching her breasts reverberates long after the play ends. Helene
Cixous in The Laugh of the Medusa says “ A woman’s body , with its thousand and one thresholds of
ardor – once by smashing yokes and censors, she lets it articulate the profusion of meanings …we have
been turned away from our bodies, shamefully taught to ignore them, to strike them with stupid sexual
modesty(885)…Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that
will wreck partitions, classes , and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through,
get beyond the ultimate reserve-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing
the word ‘silence’(886). With the death of Kovalan, Kannaki’s need for female gender- specific organs
end. By wrenching off her breasts she unsexes her female identity to rise above the patriarchal discourse.
She transgresses her sexuality by breaking her anklet, wrenching her breast and throwing her bracelet
using her bodily instruments to negotiate her position and transgress the limitations set by society. R.
Parthasarathy in his Introduction to his translation reiterates again and again to ‘outlaw’- a word used to
refer to Kannaki- “Denied love, Kannaki turns into an outlaw, she has no father, husband or son to live
for and under patriarchy a woman does not live for herself alone.” (11) No doubt, she is placed on the
pedestal of goddess by the rules of patriarchy but her choice and decision through her bodily
performance gives her the space in a male dominated society. Kannaki’s transformation from a woman
whose sexuality is 'controlled' in the first phase while her husband was alive and in the second phase
into a totally 'uncontrolled' and free, performing body when injustice befell Kovalan is clearly
noticeable. Raunak Rathee in his “The Apotheosis of Kannaki/Pattini as the wife/Goddess: Problematic
study of Ilango Adigal’s Silappatikaram” beautifully conjectures “Historically, women's breasts have
been viewed in both maternal and erotic terms. Breasts have traditionally mattered in popular and
symbolic language as signifiers of sexuality or maternity. In the Indian context also breasts are
regarded as the most visible sign of a woman's femininity, the signal of her sexuality, but with a
difference. Here, it is viewed as a disgusting sign of 'taboo' and therefore, discourses on and around the
female body is largely prohibited by patriarchal cultural norms. Kannaki's plucking of her breast to turn
the city of Madurai is one of the most startling and unique scenes from any ancient text or in mythology.
By plucking her breast Kannagi has tried to communicate the necessity of bodily performance at a
crucial time of her life. One should consider this act by Kannaki as independent expression of the body
by exposing 'natural' values of femininity underlining in the process of male centric cultural image
construction.”Anita Nair notes of a poem by the bilingual poet T. P. Rajeevan on Kannaki – the first line
of which is “Where are my breasts?” – a line that mocks at society itself.
 It is manifest that the third book The Book of Vanci is given more to the celebration of
Cenkuttavan’s victory over the northern rulers, his installation of Pattinis statue and his consecration. As
Danielou notes- “Ilango has packed his story with information, history merging into myth, religious
rites, caste, customs, and military lore, descriptions of city or country life” (Back cover). He presents a
picture of the transitional phase of religion –from Hinduism to Jainism and Buddhism yet retains the
secular nature of narration. However, the ideological indoctrination in respect to the women position
remains defined, unaltered and unchallenged. A re-reading of Kannaki’s loss of individual identity for
universal identity is fraught with forceful and prevalent dogmatic and rigid social behaviour. Kannaki’s
deification and apotheosis and Matavi’s renunciation of material life to lead a life of noble nature are
proof enough of the acumen that women possess, ‘She’ in the words of Cixous “aiming for the
impossible, stops short before the word ‘impossible’ and writes it as ‘the end’ ’’ (886) Cillapatikaram
remains one of the most poignant and powerful affirmation of the woman-position in the Tamil society.

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